


All For Love

by annavale23



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: After Jack is rescued from Davy Jones' locker, Arguing, F/M, Mentioned Jack Sparrow, Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Pirate Elizabeth Swann, Pirate Will Turner, Will confronts Elizabeth, Will loves Elizabeth, hard hitting conversations, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 08:14:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21096269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annavale23/pseuds/annavale23
Summary: He came here to repair them, to understand what went wrong.From her hand in his, lips smiling and ready to bestow him that sealing kiss, to marry them forever, to this. Barely speaking, terse looks across a sailing ship, all the way to World’s End. Him yearning for her, her locked lipped with this secret and now, Jack is alive and they’re still like this.Broken.Cracked.Wrong.





	All For Love

**Author's Note:**

> I did not think I'd be back writing more for this fandom, but this idea just came to me in the middle of the night. It takes place just after they've rescued Jack and they're on the boat - but before they see the ghosts. I *think* the argument in the movie happens here, and this is meant to be a sort of re-write/replacement of that scene, but I might have gotten times mixed up. So anyway, it's set after Jack's rescued.

When it came to Will Turner’s choices, it had always been for love.

Love for Elizabeth, his strong eyed, strong hearted lady.

Love for his father, snatched away too soon.

Love. It has always been love.

A word he’d first learnt pulled up from the sea, water in his hair and salt in his lungs.

He’d seen her face and he’d known there were more forms of love than he’d thought before.

There was love for his father. A lost, painful sort of love.

And then love for _her._

A beautiful fragile bird, kept secret in his heart because to let it out- that would not be good. His love would be secret.

So every time he’d looked at her, he’d felt it. The bird in his chest.

Small. Beautiful. Secret.

It had only spread, with it being secret. Through every fibre of his body, he loved _her_.

Elizabeth Swann.

They’d taken to the seas and his heart had signed itself over to her.

Her, with her strong gaze. Her, with her effortless beauty. _Her._

They’d held each other’s hand and spoke of marriage.

For a moment there, he’d believed it.

That his love would be free.

But things have a way of catching up to pirates.

And Elizabeth and Will have a way of making things even more difficult than they should have been.

“Elizabeth!” On his tongue, those sacred letters. He’s thumping down the stairs after her, boots on wood, and she pauses, whirling around.

“What?” She looks at him with bright, almost feverish eyes and he-

He stops, gathering his thoughts.

“Jack.” He says, simply and wholly.

_Jack._

Her eyes stiffen, tighten.

“What of him?” She asks, chin jutting out. _Proudly_. Elizabeth has always been _proud._ Proud in her defiance, proud in her love. Perhaps that should have tipped him off. Love she is open with, and Elizabeth kissed Jack in silence. In secret, in a time he was not meant to see. Elizabeth’s love is never a secret. She is open, sometimes horribly, but always open.

He could say a million things right now. Half of them might be right.

Will’s love hurts in his chest.

_You killed him_, is what he should say.

Instead:

“You kissed him.”

Elizabeth’s face is stone.

But that is what Will thinks of. Her lips on Jack’s. That quiet moment, small and secret.

He does not think of Elizabeth killing Jack. That is to be expected, by now. They’re pirates.

But kissing. He thinks of that.

“What of it?” Elizabeth’s voice is clipped, clipped too tight. It makes him wince, what he’s doing to her.

“You didn’t tell me.”

The words are somehow not enough.

She sees what he does not say. Her eyebrows tense, a small muscle in her jaw shifting.

“You saw?”

“I…” he hesitates, “did.”

He did.

“You didn’t say.” She says, eyes raking over him, judging him, waiting for him. He’s a snake in her eyes, and she’s waiting for him to strike. Wondering why he’s waited so long if he’s known all this time. Wondering why he’s even gone along with this plan, to go and save Jack if he’s known.

“I thought-” and he breaks off, his lips stinging from even the thought of the words. Her eyes are big, then narrowed, and then her lips twitch into an incredulous line. A dry laugh cracks from those lips, her head shaking. She understands him, of course she does. There is no need for the words to come out, to confront her verbally. She _knows._

“Him? You thought it was _him?”_

Will looks at her, long, deeply. His eyes tell her what he’s thinking, all those words running mental in his head. Her. Looking at _him_, at Jack, looking at no one else but Jack in that soul searching way. Her pupils darting back and forth, her hands on Jack’s shoulders and her lips, her lips on Jack’s in that soft sort of way. A tender embrace, he’d thought.

She knows he though she loved _Jack._

“You kissed him.” Will utters those terrible words, words that have haunted him at night, wishing to turn to _something_, anything to ask her _why_. To get answers, clarity. To escape this mess. But he’d know he’d hope for an innocent explanation and he was too afraid to face what he thought to be the truth if it came from her lips. So he’d just told himself it was the truth, that she loved Jack, and it was meant to hurt him less.

But he’s hurting now and so is she.

“As a distraction! As consolation.” Elizabeth bursts out with, her expression frantic, like the ocean waves whipping against the side of the ship. “So _we_ could escape – so _you_ would be safe!”

That word. _Safe_. It is raw, with everything she must have felt over this time, packed messily into those four letters and it is over spilling.

But the tenderness of her touch.

“You kissed him and didn’t even tell me.”

_I stayed awake at night. _

_I couldn’t ask for those answers. _

_But you could have given them._

“I was afraid, Will. Of what you would _think_.”

“I would think? I’ve been thinking a hell of a lot _worse_, Elizabeth!” Tia Dalma had asked, _what would you do? _Will had looked at Elizabeth as his lips uttered yes, he’d do anything to save Jack, for _her_, so she might be happy. Because, and curse his madly beating heart, he would do anything for Elizabeth. He would carve out his own heart for her if she needed him to, and if she’d loved Jack… it would have – did – break him. But he’d do it and more, just for the pleasure of her smile.

Everything Will’s done is for love.

For her.

For her heart, so it may beat in happy songs, because that, _that_, would make him happy. Even if she was in love with Jack, he would… he would suffer and do everything as he has, for her.

“I sentenced him to _death_.” Elizabeth says, her eyes raging. “Yes, he deserved it. It was _him_ the kraken wanted and it would have been _selfish_ of him to come, when it was he that was the beacon. But I chose his death and I killed him. I was afraid of what you would think of me.”

“I, think of you?” Will looks at her. How could she think he could think badly of her? She is clever, smarter than some might assume. If she’d done something, he would have thought it something she’d considered carefully.

“I backstabbed a friend. Pirates do that.”

“Then we’re pirates.”

_We’re_. Because even if it was her that sentenced Jack-

He’s done similar things.

He’s _doing_ similar things, for a different sort of love.

They’re both pirates.

Keeping secrets and lies.

“It has always been you.” Elizabeth says raggedly.

“You know,” he says, reaching; his hand, her face. He brushes his knuckles to her cheekbone. She leans, for a second, into the touch before she pushes back, “it has always been you too.”

“It has always been you. Not Jack, not James. _You.”_ She reiterates.

“You should have told me.” He murmurs. “I would have-”

_Understood._

Because Elizabeth is ruthless and Elizabeth does what is best. She is the ocean, and the water is in her veins, all the storm of the million seas, and he, he is the understanding. She is the storm and he is the land after, waiting for her to end and to return to his arms. He is strong, of course, but she is fierce. She is the sea and it is his job as the land to understand, to wait and to accept.

But if he is the land, he is also capable of great anger. Rumbles, tears. He is capable of it all and perhaps that is why she did not tell him. For she is the sea with all that wisdom, and he is not.

But he would have understood.

He would have understood _her._

Because it is always her, for him.

She is his air and his reason.

She is his love.

He would have understood.

“If I had told you,” she starts and he goes to speak, but she hushes him, a steel to her face that he knows to obey, “if I had told you, you would have shown it. You would not have kept the secret.”

“I _would-”_

“You are honour, Will. When you betray, you do it for the best of reasons: as best as you can if you are running with pirates. And I-”

_I am not_, her eyes say.

_I am a Lady, but I am not._

_I am the weapon and you are the choice. _

_You make the choice. I do it. _

Because-

If Will had seen, had realised-

Would he have done it?

Would he have been _able_ to do it?

Because no one would suspect Elizabeth of being able to. No one but Will, maybe.

But she should have told him.

She should have.

And she didn’t.

“This was not your decision.” She tells him.

“You shouldn’t have made it for me.” He retorts.

Elizabeth does not appreciate his response.

Her jaw is tight and her skin glows with anger.

She kissed Jack, handcuffed him to the mast and killed him.

She kissed Jack, killed him and _didn’t tell Will_.

He came here to repair them, to understand what went wrong.

From her hand in his, lips smiling and ready to bestow him that sealing kiss, to marry them forever, to _this._ Barely speaking, terse looks across a sailing ship, all the way to World’s End. Him yearning for her, her locked lipped with this secret and now, Jack is alive and they’re still like this.

Broken.

Cracked.

_Wrong_.

She looks at him with storms in her eyes.

He has not fixed a thing.

They have sparred, with words instead of swords, and she’s just as good with words as she is with a sword. She’s lethal and straight to the heart.

They have not fixed a thing.

They have brought the ocean into the boat and now they may drown.

She takes to the stairs and he is left.

Down.

With the waves.


End file.
